One of the companies that turned a profit from the Covid pandemic – Zoom, wants workers back in the office. In 2019, the pandemic took its toll and Zoom rose to the occasion and made video chat communication possible. Now, it seems that they too are ready to go back to normal and are calling all employees back to office.
All Zoom employees who live within an 80-kilometer (50-mile) radius of the company’s offices will need to start checking in. The company hasn’t completely embraced the decision to work from the office, and, for the time being, they have a fairly liberal hybrid model. Employees must work from the office at least 2 days a week; the rest of the working days can be done from the comfort of their homes. The rules for the hybrid mode of operation will be applicable from August onwards. For reference, in January 2022 only 2% of Zoom employees were office based.
‘We believe that a structured hybrid approach — meaning employees that live near an office need to be onsite two days a week to interact with their teams — is most effective for Zoom, and as a company, we are in a better position to use our own technologies, continue to innovate, and support our global customers.’ a company spokesperson told Business Insider.
The company’s shares skyrocketed six-fold during the pandemic, in 2020, since the employees were “stuck” at home and yet work still had to be done. Since then, Zoom’s stock plummeted and the company has lost $100 billion. The loss in market value is due to the strong competition from Microsoft’s Teams, but also because of the return of employees to offices.
Zoom was one of the last companies that made it non-mandatory to work from the office. From April 2022, Google employees work from the office at least 3 days a week. From September 2022, the same rules became applicable for Apple employees. Elon Musk stopped working from home at Twitter the moment he bought the micro-blog.
In the US, only 12% of workers work exclusively from home. Nowadays, most now work in offices, and 29% have adapted a hybrid way of working. This is still a significant jump, especially when compared to the time period from 5 years ago. Before the pandemic, only 5% of workers worked from home.
